Contents

Material
Culture

The Hemudu culture co-existed with the Majiabang
culture as two separate and distinct cultures, with cultural
transmissions between the two. Two major floods caused the nearby
Yaojiang River to change its course and inundated the soil with salt, forcing the people of Hemudu to
abandon its settlements. The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses.

The Hemudu culture is one of the earliest cultures to cultivate
rice. Most of the artifacts
discovered at Hemudu consist of animal bones, exemplified by hoes
made of shoulder bones used for cultivating rice.

The culture produced a thick, porous pottery. The distinct pottery was typically
black and made with charcoal powder. Plant and geometric designs
were commonly painted onto the pottery; the pottery was sometimes
also cord-marked. The culture also produced carved jade ornaments, carved ivory artifacts and small, clay figurines.

Environment

Fossilized amoeboids and pollen suggests Hemudu culture emerged
and developed in the middle of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. A study of a
sea-level highstand in the Ningshao Plain from 7000 – 5000 BP shows
that there may have been stabilized lower sea levels at this time
followed by, from 5000 to 3900 BP, frequent flooding.